Student decline taking its toll

Thursday

Apr 24, 2008 at 12:01 AM

STOCKTON - A steady decline in student enrollment continues to hit the Lincoln Unified School District hard financially, a trend that has already forced the district to close one elementary school and is expected to continue until 2014, forecasters say.

Keith Reid

STOCKTON - A steady decline in student enrollment continues to hit the Lincoln Unified School District hard financially, a trend that has already forced the district to close one elementary school and is expected to continue until 2014, forecasters say.

Although not as drastic as the declining enrollment figures that led trustees to close Village Oaks School in March, an expected 130-student drop in average daily attendance this year will cost the district about $754,000 in revenue, putting extra stress on its $61 million budget.

In California, schools are funded based on daily attendance numbers.

Superintendent Steve Lowder called the enrollment dip a "double whammy" when combined with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed 10 percent cut in school funding.

"Combined, we're facing a $3.2 million cut," Lowder said. "Now, trustees have decided to offset that partially by using some of our reserve funds. But we will still be making a number of cuts."

Lowder attributes the enrollment decline to stagnant growth in the district. Pinned between the sprawling Stockton Unified and Lodi Unified school districts, most new housing developments are sending children to schools either south or north of Lincoln Unified.

"We don't have the growth. We'll be talking about (declining enrollment) for the next three or four years," Lowder said. "Development happened here in the '60s, '70s, '80s and started slowing down in the '90s. Now, the students are graduated, and we have a lot more retirees."

Trustee Everett Low said the board has been prepared for a 130-student decline for more than a year.

"We're landlocked," Low said. "We have no place left to grow."

Demographers estimate enrollment numbers will continue to dip in Lincoln Unified until 2012 but will stabilize around 2014, when a new generation of families is expected to begin occupying existing homes in district neighborhoods.

District officials say cuts in Lincoln Unified will affect teachers, some administrators and other staff. No more schools are threatened with closure; however, some programs will have to be cut.

"If you say 130 students make up five classrooms, and you figure each of the five teachers make $65,000, that's $325,000," Lowder calculated. "Even then, you have $425,000 that you have to cut somewhere."